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OBITUARY NOTICE 



OF iHE LATE 



GEORGE L; DUYCKIXCK, ESQ. 



XEW YOr.K: 
GEX. PROT. EPISC. SUNDAY SCHOOL UXION" 

T62 Broadway. 






7 



OBITlAPtY NOTICE. 



WiTHix a few days past, cleat li has tvdce 
visited tlie same dwelling in tMs city, and 
withdrawn from it two gentlemen who had 
been long bound to each other by close do- 
mestic relationships and congenial tastes, 
and whose departure ^^dll create a void yet 
to be realized in the I :)roken home circle, and 
on the paths of their daily life. AYe refer 
to Georoe L. Duyckixck and Johx Albert 
PaktoXj the one a brother and the other a 
brother-in-law of Evert A. Duyckinck, Esc[., 
the well-known litterateur of this city. Both 
these gentlemen^ though cut oif in their 
prime, had, by varied excellencies of charac- 
ter, secured a marked and honorable place 



4 OBITIJAEY NOTICE. 

iu tlie estimation of all who knew them. 
Mr. Panton, while restrained from the ac- 
tivities of the legal profession^ to which he 
belonged, by failing health, was endowed 
with those rare traits, both intellectnal and 
moral, which, united to vigor of body, would 
have won attention, and opened to him a 
brilliant career. Feeble as he was, and sub= 
ject to a depressing malady, he sought his 
office, and attended to its duties with a pa= 
tient, pains-taldng assiduity, almost to the 
last day of his life. It w^ould be pleasant 
to blend in a common portraiture two such 
men, so tenderly associated in life and thus 
undivided in death ; but the limits of this 
sketch will be necessarily restricted to Mr. 
Duyckinck, since it is suggested by the just 
and beautiful tribute recently paid to his 
memory, in a series of resolutions adopted 
by the Executive Committee of the Sunday 
School Union and Church Book Society, of 
which he was a member. The writer is led 
to embody in a different form a few such 



OBITUARY ]N"OTICE. O 

particulars of Mr. Diiycldnck's personal, lit- 
erary, and religious history, as were of ne- 
cessity excluded from the more concise and 
formal action of his bereaved associates. 

George Long Duyckinck was born in New 
York, October 1 7th, 1 8 2 3. His father. Evert 
Duyckinck, the representative of an old 
Knickerbacker family dating from the ear- 
liest settlement of New York, was, for many 
years before his retirement from business, 
the oldest, as he was always one of the most 
respected publishers of the city. Much of 
the standard literature of the time in our 
oldest libraries, bears his imprint. Residing 
in the first ward of the city, the family were 
long attached to Grace Church, enjoying the 
ministrations in that parish of its devoted 
Rector, the Rev. Dr. Wainwright, then in 
the prime of his rare pulpit eloquence, and 
engaged in the eminently faithful discharge 
of those j)astoral duties among the house- 
holds of his congregation, by which, no 
less than by his social qualities in every 



6 OBITUAEY IS^OTICE. 

sphere, he was alwaj^s distinguislied. The 
family removing to the upper part of the 
city, were among the early parishioners of 
St. Thomas's Chm^ch, at that time under 
the charge of Dr., now Bishop Upfold. To 
this Parish the subject of this notice thus 
became devotedly attached from his child- 
hood, numbering its successive Rectors, Dr. 
Hawks, Dr. Whitehouse, and others, among 
his most valued friends. 

He was educated partly at Geneva, now 
Hobart Free College — his association w^ith 
which, it is believed, will be remembered 
by more than one of his companions 
now in the Episcopal ministry — and part- 
ly at the University in this city, at the 
time when Professor Tayler Lewis, that 
most accomplished scholar and original 
thinker, occupied its chair of Greek Litera- 
ture, and taught Plato in the spiiit of a 
Christian Philosopher ; while the Rev. Dr. 
C, S. Henry, with kindred powers and en- 
thusiasm, was Professor of Intellectual and 



OBITFAEY IVTOTICE. 7 

Moral Philosophy and History. Of young 
Duyckinck's firmness, and fixed religious 
character, during his College life, a single 
incident may suffice in the way of illustra- 
tion. It is furnished by a class-mate and 
friend of five-and-twenty years — the Rev. 
John N. Norton, D. D., of Frankfort, Ky., 
who writes: "The very night he entered 
college, he said to his room-mate (now the 
Rev. A. B. Russell, of Plaquemine, Louisi- 
ana) a gentleman older than himself, ' AVe 
must have pravers toQ:ether everv nio;ht !' 
and taking his Prayer Book, he conducted 
the devotions, beoinnino; with the Lord's 
Prayer, and then using a number of col- 
lects, selected and arranged according to 
his admirable taste. With all this there 
was no aifectation nor parade, but every 
thing was simple, natural, and child-like." 

He graduated at the University in 1843, 
and subsequently gave some attention 
to the study of the Law, and was admitted 
as a member of the profession, though he 



8 OBITUARY XOTICE. 

was never engaged in its practice. His 
organization, both bodily and mental, was 
of that delicate and sensitive order which 
finds nothing congenial in the conflicts and 
sharp issnes of the busy world. His tastes 
were rather framed for literary cultivation, 
a disposition which was much strengthened 
by an early visit to Europe, in company 
with his intimate friend, William iVllen 
Butler, now an eminent lawyer of this city. 
In EurojDC, greatly favored by opportuni- 
ties not always enjoyed, he acquired a par- 
ticular fondness for Art, which he studied 
with glowing interest in the works of the 
great Christian masters, and in the kindred, 
religious development of Church architec- 
ture. On his return home he became en- 
gaged with his brother Evert in the editor- 
ship of the Literary World ^ a weekly jour- 
nal, in quarto, which numbered among its 
contributors some of the most distinguished 
scholars in the country. The ^^Titer, who 
subscribed for and carefully read this jour- 



OBITUAEY jN^OTICE. 9 

nal during the entire period of its existence, 
can bear grateful testimony to its value. It 
was perfectly unique in design and form 
and spirit, and to its last issue maintained 
a reputation for higli tone, just criticism, 
and the classic j)urity of its leading articles, 
which has never been surpassed by any 
journal of such modest pretensions in the 
Republic of Letters. The brothers Duyc- 
kinck threw into it their combined ener- 
gies, and imparted to it withal a savor of 
Church life which made it esj)ecially ac- 
ceptable to the members of our Communion 
— opening its columns to, and inviting con- 
tributions from the younger of the clergy, 
such as the Rev. Dr. Washburn, now of St. 
Mark's, Philadelphia, and the Rev. poets No- 
ble, Steinfort, Kidney, and Rider. This jour- 
nal closed with its thirteenth volume in 1853. 
Shortly after, the younger Duyckinck, still 
in concert with his brother, was engaged in 
the composition of the Cyclopaedia of Amer- 
ican Literature, which was published in two 



10 OBITITAKY IS-QTICE. 

large octavo volumes by Scribner, in 1856. 
Tlie original portion of this extensive and 
elaborate work was nearly all written by 
the two brothers, and furnishes abounding 
evidence to the industry, tact, nice discrim- 
ination, and excellent spirit, with which it 
was prosecuted. 

Mr. DuycMnck was elected a member 
of the Executive Committee of the Sunday 
School Union and Church Book Society in 
1855, and after having revisited Europe, 
where an unusually interesting and profita- 
ble sojourn was marred by an accident on 
the eve of his return, in 1857 he was elected 
Treasurer. It was fortunate for this noble 
Institution that it was able to secure so 
largely the literary ability and experience of 
Mr. Duyckinck. In this position, at once 
honorable and difficult, he became thorough- 
ly identified with the leading interests, as 
well as with a large number of the leading 
members of the Church, both clerical and lay, 
and amidst such engagements and associa- 



OBITUAEY ^"OTICE. 11 

tions lie devoted his best powers to the most 
important and sacred of all ends — a pure and 
wholesome literature for the children of the 
ChmTh. Previons to this he had been con- 
nected with various other institutions and 
literary bodies, where his intellectual supe- 
riority and personal influence were conspic- 
uous, notwithstanding his natural and al- 
most feminine reserve. As a member of the 
New York Historical Society — the Society 
Library, as well as of more select coteries, 
having in view the cultivation of art and 
aesthetic tastes — he was always respected 
and beloved, not more for his critical pow- 
ers and enthusiastic love of letters, than his 
genial spirit. But while he never relin- 
quished these earlier relations, he entered 
with absorbing; zeal, althouodi with shat- 
tered health, upon his new sphere. It was 
congenial. It was in harmony, doubtless, 
with his own conviction that for him the 
" time was short," and with his own desire, 
that what remained of strength and ojDpor- 



12 OBITUARY jN'OTICE. 

tiinitv slioiild be consecrated to those ser- 
vices wliich would most befit Ms frail hold 
upon life, and honor his Master. With such 
chastened views of life and duty, he began, 
in connection with the business and financial 
responsibilities which he had assumed, the 
publication of a series of religious biogra- 
phies for the Chuix'h Book Society. The 
earliest of these was ^^ The Life of George 
Herbert,'^ of which it is sufficient to say — 
such is its amiable and reverential spirit — 
that it may be read with pleasure as a sup- 
plement to the cherished work of Isaac Wal- 
ton. This was followed by other volumes 
in a similar vein of sacred study and devo. 
tional feeling, embracing the lives of Bishop 
Latimer, Bishop Ken, and Jeremy Taylor. 
These works are noticeable among publica- 
tions of their class for the strict fidelity of 
the narrative — ^the compression of much mat- 
ter into little space — and a certain unaffect- 
ed simplicity and grace of expression, ad- 
mirably adapted to the almost seraj)hic 



OBIXrAET XOTICE. 13 

cliaracter of the subjects. In selecting siicli 
worthies from the list of old Enoiish di- 
vines, for careful though familiar delinea- 
tion, Mr. Duyckinck disclosed his own spir- 
itual affinities, and that line of ecclesiastical 
and theological investigation in which he 
found most delio:ht. It was a labor of love 
to be working in these mines of sanctity. 
and learning, and devout meditation, and 
deathless verse. He required no other in- 
centive, and yet there was another, and most 
grateful stimulus to his labor, in the fact 
that the Sunday-school children of differ- 
ent parishes of the Church — his own, St. 
Thomas's, leading the way — were in concert 
with him, bringing their free-will offerings, 
and contributing the means for publication. 
The dedications of these little volumes to 
the Rev. Dr. Hawks, the late Dr. John W. 
Francis, the eminent sui'geon Dr. John F. 
South, of London, and the Dean of West- 
minster, Dr. Trench, with whom he became 
personally acquainted in his last visit to 



14 OBITUARY ]SrOTICE. 

England, mark the character of his friend- 
ships. It was the intention of Mr. Duyc- 
kinck to add to this series a biography of 
Archbishop Leighton, " Holy Leighton ;'' 
and he would, doubtless, had life and 
strength been afforded him, have found 
other subjects for his pen, of a like elevated 
character and influence in the service of the 
Church. 

While pursuing these favorite studies, and 
placing upon the shelves of the Church 
Book Society the fruits of his mental toil, 
he was wakeful, in a singular degree, con- 
sidering his infirm health, to every passing 
interest of the Church, at home and abroad. 
We remember w^ell the warm and active 
part which he took in the Memorial Church 
recently erected alongside the little village 
temple, in which Herbert served at the 
altar. His attention was called to the sub- 
ject by a letter from Bishop De Lancey, then 
in London (in March, 1859), Avho had just 
fallen in with Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert, 



OBITUARY ISrOTIOE. 15 

the great promoters of this undertaking, 
and had kindly presented to them Mr. 
Duyckinck's Life of Herbert, which he had 
carried with him across the Atlantic. The 
Bishop was naturally interested in the Me- 
morial Church, and proposed to his Ameri- 
can correspondents that they should aid 
their English brethren in the matter. The 
suggestion was promptly taken up by Mr. 
Duyckinck, who by his j)en, personal ejfforts, 
and liberal subscription, ably co-operated 
with the kindred exertions of the Rev. Dr. 
Coxe, now of this city, in carrying out the 
intention. The money, we believe, was ex- 
pended upon a window of the new Parish 
Church at Bemerton ; at least it was the 
design to set apart the American contribu- 
tions for some special portion of the work. 
The same characteristic sympathy with 
Church objects led him to espouse with a 
vigor which never declined, the struggling 
institutions at Nashotah and Faribault. 
He felt their importance, both present and 



16 OBITUARY jS^OTICE. 

prospective, as nurseries of tlie Churcli in 
new regions, and witlilield no effort or influ- 
ence which might tend to their firm estab- 
lishment. Meantime, with the burden of 
official dntv upon him — a burden which be- 
came more and more weio^htv as national 

O e, 

and financial disturbances increased — and 
vAth ever multiplying demands upon his 
time and scholarship, he was patiently de- 
voting himself to a class of labors, to which 
very few, possessed of his excellent gifts, 
would condescend. Not only was he one 
of the founders of that admirable juvenile 
sheet, " The Cldldreiis Giiest^' and a fre- 
quent, as well as most happy contributor to 
its pages, but during all the closing years 
of his life, even when his best strength was 
weakness, and the saddest tokens of decline 
were visible to all, he was regularly at the 
head of his class, in the Sunday-school of 
the 23arish church. Even the remonstrances 
of his pastor were of no avail, and at last, 
when utterly prostrate, and forced to sue- 



OBITUARY IN^OTICE. 17 

cumb, so quiet was Ms withdrawal, and so 
brief tlie period of Ms absence, that the af- 
fectionate boys of his Bible class were plan- 
ning a pleasant surprise for him on Easter 
morning, with the very flowers which, on 
that morning, they laid, tearfully, upon his 
grave. But they paid him a tribute still 
more touching. They were all found kneel- 
ing at the Easter Communion, two or three 
for the first time, — the youthful seals of a 
teacher who had gone from them into a 
world of light. 

To speak of the religious character of 
such a man is superfluous, almost an imper- 
tinence. Every thing about him proclaimed 
his religion to be life^ not appendage or pro- 
fession. He was eminently earnest and sin- 
cere, devotion forming an essential part of 
his disposition. It was sown in his child- 
hood, in the example of his parents : the 
simple, truthful, manly nature of his father 
(I quote the language of one who was more 
to him than brother), and the implicit, ever- 



18 OBITUAEY IS'OTICE. 

j)resent, fervent, and yet unobtrusive piety 
of liis motlier. 

Warmly attached to tlie Liturgy and 
Order of tlie Ej^iscopal Chiu^ch, wMcli he 
was ever ready to defend, he was no angry 
controversialist, being confident that what 
was so holy and venerable, and suited to 
human wants, would find its way without 
violence to the hearts of men. Thus he 
numbered many friends among the denom- 
inations, and it may be mentioned as a sin- 
gular proof of the regard in which he was 
held beyond the pale of his own beloved 
Church, that the Eev. Dr. Oso^ood, a hio^hlv 
esteemed Unitarian j^astor of this city, 
made the death of Mr. Duyckinck the topic 
of earnest remark to the Sunday-school 
children of his congregation, assembled at 
the Easter festival which he has of late 
years introduced, while on that very after- 
noon the Rector of St. Thomas's was incul- 
cating the same lesson, and paying a similar 
tribute, among the little people of his flock. 



OBITUAEY :srOTICE. 19 

The shadow of death had so long rested 
upon Mr. Duyckinck, he had so often re- 
vived, and been received back to life again, 
as it Avere, that his end, ^vhich occurred on 
the 30th of March, appeared sudden and 
abrupt ; but it was full of peace, and ra- 
diant with the hope of a joyful resurrec- 
tion. We saw him after death, as he lay 
in the fixed composedness of his last slum- 
ber, and never shall we forget the expres- 
sion which lingered upon his face. Those 
who trom acquaintance are able to recall 
him, will remember the contour and classic 
lines of his countenance : these were trans- 
figured with an unearthly light, and in 
p:azino: at him one mio:ht imas^ine the eve to 
rest upon some apostle whose sun had gone 
down at noon, or upon the calm visage of 
some holy presbyter of earlier and purer 
times, like good George Herbert, whose 
pictures he was thought to resemble. 

The funeral was, in all its apj)ointments, 
such as would harmonize most tiaily with 



20 OBITUARY NOTICE. 

the gentle and undemonstrative cliaracter 
of the deceased. Every thing was marked 
by simplicity and an unvarying conformity 
to the Offices of the Church. There was no 
parade, but there was an impressiveness 
which could he felt. Many of the chief and 
most honored men of the city were present, 
to offer their last respects and attend him to 
his burial, while his late associates of the 
Sunday School Union, and multitudes who 
had been drawn to him by other ties, gath- 
ered around his remains, and by all the nat- 
ural ensigns of grief bore testimony to his 
worth. There was one feature of this fu- 
neral solemnity, however, which deserves 
particular mention, and with this ^ve shall 
close our imjDerfect sketch. It would seem 
as if Mr. Duyckinck had intimated before- 
hand, though unconscious, probably, of any 
desire that it should be remembered at his 
own burial, what spirit should pervade the 
closing services above the dust of a Chris- 
tian. In his Life of Bishop Ken, speaking 



OBITUAET ^'OTICE. 21 

near the end of the volume of the three 
celebrated hymns composed by that noble 
prelate, he says : '' That for the evening is 
the favorite. This is perhaps due to its 
more frequent use, and to the associations 
connected with it. The day usually de- 
clines before the close of our afternoon ser- 
vices. The twilight lends its accompani- 
ment to the organ, and the words most hap- 
pily harmonize with the quieting influences 
of the hour and the scene. It has its asso- 
ciations of a still deeper tenderness. AVe 
recall the Church at eventide, when minis- 
ter and peoj^le have entered together, when 
the cong:reo:ation numbers o?ie who sees not, 
hears not, moves not, and yet, by simple 
presence, exercises more potent S23ell than 
the best brain livins; and movino^ in the 
company. On that evening which for the 
dead has no mornino: in this world, on that 
evening when to the mourner his sun seems 
about to sink into the grave, and know no 
morrow, Bishop Ken's strains sometimes 



22 OBITUAEY KOTICE. 

foUoAV the inspired sublimities of St. Paul. 
Who that has heard them tlien^ can ever 
coldly hear them afterwards T This sweet 
and tender record of impressions and sym- 
pathies, caused, as we have reason to know, 
by the selection of Ken's hymn at the fune- 
ral of a dear relative who was buried 
^^ toward evening,'' led to a corresponding 
selection and hour in his own case. His 
committal to the dust was uttered at the 
day's decline, and was preceded by that 
hymn which conveys to the living an ad- 
monition, and to the faithful dead a prom- 
ise :— 



^' Teach me to live that I may dread 
The grave as httle as my bed ; 
Teach me to die that so I may 
Triumphing rise at the last day." 

wl y\ m. 

HURLGATE, April. 1863. 






OBITUAEY NOTICE. 23 



Ix addition to the foregoing liappy tri- 
bute, from the pen of the Rev. Rector of St. 
Thomas's Church, New York, it will gratify 
the many friends of the deceased to learn, 
from the following preamble and resolutions, 
the esteem in which he was held by his co- 
adjutors in the General Protestant Episcopal 
Sunday School Union and Church Book 
Society. They were passed at a meeting of 
the Executive Committee, held April 9th, 
1863. 

'^ Letters were read — called forth by the 
lamented death of our late Treasurer — from 
the Rev. Dr. Morgan, Mr. Evert A. Duyc- 
kinck, and Mr. Elbridge T. Gerry; and a 
committee of three was appointed to prepare 
suitable resolutions on the subject. The 
committee consisted of the Rev. Wm, 
AVatson, the Rev. E. A. Hoffman, and S. 
Davis, Esq. After retiring for the purpose, 
the committee returned and presented the 



24 OBITUAEY XOTICE. 

following preamhle and resolutions, whicli 
were unanimoiisly adopted by the Execu- 
tive Committee, to wit : 

'' Whereas, it has pleased Almighty God, 
in his wise j^rovidence, to remove from the 
scene of his earthly labors our late coadju- 
tor, George L. Duyckinck, Esq. ; the Ex- 
ecutive Committee of the General Protest- 
ant Episco]3al Sunday School Union and 
Church Book Society, of which the de- 
ceased was for many years a member, 
desire to put on record, not as a formal 
act, but as a sincere expression of their ad- 
miration of his many virtues, their deep 
sense of the loss which the Institution re- 
presented by this Committee has sustained 
in his death. Therefore, 

'^ jResolved : That we esteem it a privi- 
leo;e to have been associated in Christian 
work with one w^hose purity of character 
and unfailing courtesy were only equalled by 
his intellectual ability, his stern integrity, 



OBITITAEY NOTICE. 25 

and iintiriug; devotion to the interests of 
the Church. 

'^ liesolved : That we cherish with grat- 
itude the memory of his faithful services, 
rendered often amid weakness and suffer- 
ing, to this Society, in the various offices of 
trust which he so long filled with credit to 
himself and with usefulness to the Institu- 
tion ; and not less in the assistance given 
it by the various contributions from his pen 
to our Christian Literature — especially the 
Lives of Jeremy Taylor, Herbert, Ken, and 
Latimer, all of them labors of love ; 
through which he, though dead, continues 
and w^ill continue to speak. 

" Resolved : That, in the early death of 
the departed, and in the satisfactory results 
secured by his short life, we find both ad- 
monition and encouragement ; a warning to 
work Avhile the day lasts, and encourage, 
ment to hope that, if we be guided by sin- 
gleness of purpose, we shall not labor in 
vain* 



26 OBITUARY Is'OTICE. 

" Resolved : Tliat a copy of these resolu- 
tions be sent to the family of the deceased, 
and that they be placed on the minutes of 
the Committee, and published in the Church 
papers." 

■^ "jf "jf '^ 4^ "jf 

Blessed are the dead who die ix the Lord, for 
they rest from their labors, axd their works do 
follow them. 



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